The mayor of Bucharest, Nicusor Dan, achieved a historic victory in the Romanian presidential elections on Sunday, overturning the significant lead held by his opponent, the far-right George Simion, who was 20 points ahead of the centrist and pro-European politician in the first round of the elections.
The turnaround was based on a massive mobilization of voters. While the voter turnout was 53% in the first round on the 4th, this time it reached around 65%.
Dan's victory was not as overwhelming as predicted by exit polls, and throughout the counting, both candidates were neck and neck, with the independent politician only securing the win after many minutes of uncertainty. Simion led in the early stages of the count, but the tide turned in favor of Dan after more than half of the votes had been counted. With all votes tallied, Dan garnered 54.2% of the votes compared to Simion's 45.8%.
Dan's strategy in the final stretch of the campaign was as unique as it was unexpected. On the 8th, he admitted that a survey he had commissioned indicated he was going to lose the election. At the same time, he took the opportunity to appeal to voters who had supported other moderate candidates in the first round of voting. "I know Romania will make the right decision between rebuilding or division, and between a society that promotes dialogue and harmony, and one that promotes hatred," he said without mentioning the representative of the ideology he criticized, who was none other than the president of the Alliance for the Unity of Romania (AUR).
Expert Remus Stefureac, director of the polling center Inscop, had already explained that "voter turnout" would be "a decisive factor in determining the winner" of the elections and added that Nicusor Dan only had a chance if the calls he made in the last weeks for mobilization led to an increase in votes of more than 10 points. That threshold was surpassed early in the afternoon.
Stefureac indicated that just two days before the Sunday election, the data he had suggested that Dan had surpassed Simion in voter intention among the Romanian population residing in the country. However, he warned that this circumstance could be nullified by votes from the diaspora, which overwhelmingly supported the extremist in the first round.
At that time, Simion received 61% of the votes from Romanian expatriates. However, Dan's calm and composed message in contrast to the radicalism of Simion and his political partner, Calin Georgescu, was so effective that the mayor of the capital city also managed to narrow that gap to make it irrelevant in defining the outcome.
Throughout the Sunday, the same voter turnout data indicated that the anticipated "overwhelming" victory announced by Simion could be derailed, as votes in urban areas - more favorable to Nicusor Dan - doubled the number of ballots counted in rural regions, which were Simion's stronghold.
Analyst Stefan Popescu compared this event to the decisive 1996 elections between the successor of dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu, Ion Iliescu, and the professor Emil Constantinescu, who managed to win the electoral contest, ushering in a democratic change of power unprecedented in the country's history. "What was at stake in this campaign, its themes, the strong emotional charge, the extreme polarization of the electorate. It reminds me of the 1996 elections," he said on Antena 3 radio.
Following the same playbook popularized by American Donald Trump when he lost the 2020 election, Simion's supporters began to denounce "worrying signs" early in the morning of the election day, claiming that their leader could only lose if there was massive "fraud."
As the polling stations closed and even before the counting began, Simion decided to declare himself the winner of the election, rallying his supporters. "We are the clear winners and we claim victory in the name of the Romanian people. But it's not my victory. It's the victory of the Romanian people, humiliated, robbed, and deceived so many times, until now. It's the victory of who was supposed to be the president of Romania, it's the victory of Calin Georgescu," he said, referring to his political partner, the radical candidate who won the first round of the presidential election in November last year.
That election was annulled by the Constitutional Court, which stated that there had been a massive campaign of manipulation on social media platforms like TikTok, which some local media linked to Moscow.
This time, a spokesperson for the Romanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Andrei Tarnea, once again accused Russia of "interfering" in the process in a post shared online. "We see the traces of Russian interference again. A viral campaign of fake news on Telegram and other social networks," wrote the Romanian official on X.
During the voting day, Simion reiterated his alliance with Calin Georgescu - a figure who has declared admiration for the fascist regime that ruled Romania in World War II as well as for the communist dictator Nicolae Ceaucescu - and both voted together at the same polling station in Bucharest.
However, the relationship between Simion and Georgescu has not always been so close, and many of Simion's associates warn that the AUR leader has used his political partner as a mere electoral ploy.
According to one of his confidants quoted in a local publication, Simion operates "between the world of propaganda, where he will show his electorate that he is trying to make Georgescu president, and the real world, where he will get rid of Georgescu so that he, Simion, can assume the presidency. In reality, Simion is as interested in Georgescu as whether it's raining in Vienna right now."
Local analysts recall that the far-right leader already parted ways last April with the AUR ideologue, Claudiu Tarziu, who co-founded the party with Simion in 2019. Tarziu, who shares an extremist creed similar to that of his former colleague, accused him of acting "authoritarian" and turning AUR into a mere vehicle to propel himself into power.
"I feel expelled from my own home by my children because I tried to prevent them from setting it on fire," Tarziu wrote online when announcing his departure from the party on April 9.
On his part, centrist Nicusor Dan emphasized that the election represented a choice between two models of the country. "I voted for a European direction and not for Romania's isolation. This is a turning point," he said.
The country's interim president, Ilie Bolojan, also attributed to the election the significance given by many analysts. He stated while voting, "The decision Romanians make today will not only influence our development model for the next five years, but will also have effects on the lives of our children and grandchildren."
A hypothetical victory for Simion would have been a significant blow to the European political strategy of Brussels, facing a populist triple alliance - represented by Hungary, Slovakia, and Romania - capable of "blocking" many of its decisions, exacerbating the internal crisis of the European Union.
Simion did not hide that this was his intention and in repeated interviews with the ideologue of the American ultra movement, Steve Bannon, he stated that his hypothetical accession to the Romanian presidency would usher in "a wave of victories for President Donald Trump in Europe" and signify "the end of the globalist era" in the European Union. "Together with (Hungarian Prime Minister) Viktor Orban and (Slovak Prime Minister) Robert Fico, we will block many of the crazy ideas" proposed by the EU authorities in Brussels, Simion added in his last conversation with Bannon.
Both Simion and Calin Georgescu also made it clear that they intended to limit assistance to Ukraine under the pretext of staying out of the conflict and promoting "peace," the same arguments promoted by pro-Russian social media for months.
"Our position regarding Ukraine is neutrality, not escalation, not supplying weapons, it is the same position maintained by the (US President, Donald) Trump administration," Simion stated in a recent televised debate.